AN: Hi! Sorry this has been so late... I got offered a promotion a few weeks ago, and I've spent most of my time working overtime trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. Took my boss almost a week to realise the guy he'd assigned to train me was laid off three days after I got the new job. But this weekend I've had nothing but time since I accidentally took off a chunk of my finger at work on Friday, so I'm kind of not allowed to do anything to jar it. Heh, my mum's always joking about how if my finger hurts so much when I get it caught in a door that we should just cut it off. Well! Tomorrow, they just might! (depends on whether or not the chunk of flesh I took off was too far gone to reattach)
Anyway! Enough gory details about my finger! You're here for the final chapter! And yes, this is the final one. There's going to be a long stretch until the next story is posted, but when I do upload it, it will be under the title 'A Delta Adventure'. Make of that what you will :-D (Actually, I suppose it's stupidly obvious, but whatever. I like it.)
May grinned at her battle partner as they both nodded in silent agreement, the Pokemon rising from his battle stance and May patting Swampert on the shoulder, offering her Pokemon a Sitrus berry before digging into her bag for another berry to toss to their opponent.
"I know we're not the most challenging of opponents, but I personally have been enjoying this. How about you Swampert?" By her side, the water and ground type Pokemon roared with a grin, shooting a jet of water up into the sky to show his enthusiasm. Their opponent padded over to stand on May's other side, his violet eyes staring up at the sky as a very small smile formed on his lips.
"I too enjoy our spars." He said in his psychic voice. "I am beginning to wonder if I had misjudged you humans."
May shrugged as she led the way back to their little camp in the field. "I think it's just something you have to put a little more caution into. Some of the humans are terrible people who should crawl into a canyon and die." Swampert snarled alongside his trainer, remembering the exact human his trainer was thinking of. "Most humans don't care, I think. And then there's a few of us who are just crazy enough." She smirked at the psychic type, who shook his head in bemusement.
"Just like Pokemon; it seems I cannot judge the human race by the actions of the few." He shook his head, looking down at his three-fingered paw. "But I am not yet ready to trust the others."
May shrugged, kneeling down next to the firepit they'd built several weeks ago, when they'd first arrived. "I don't blame you. Humans can be really sneaky, but you can't tell if the personality they're hiding is one of a good person, or a horrible one. Not until you get to know them."
"Like you, and your strange friend."
"I still don't understand what you find so strange about Darius." May complained. "Sure he's got a bad habit of making me worry about his life, and getting himself hospitalized, but I wouldn't think that makes him weird."
Mewtwo simply shrugged. If she did not already know of the boy's strangeness, then it was not his place to tell her.
Michael sighed happily as he wandered through the thick forest. It'd been almost an hour since he'd last run into a trainer, and it was peaceful with just the sound of the wild Pokémon rustling through the underbrush, and the wind through the leaves in the trees. He hadn't even considered the fact that the past timeline's rampage of Life and Death would hurt more than just the people and the Pokemon in the cities and towns. Forests were both alive and full of life too, afterall. Of course they would have suffered for the rampages. And all the Pokemon living in the forest too. Unconsciously he shivered as his mind wandered onto the thought of the two Pokemon of Life and Death, and one hand drifted to one of the shoulder straps of the backpack that contained the most precious object in his possession. He was almost certain Darius had pieced together several dark details of just what had happened in the ruins of Team Flare's base, but Michael was extremely glad the other agent hadn't confronted him over it. While he'd mostly come to terms with the responsibility that Yveltal had given him, he was still in the process of heavily denying what Xerneas had done to make sure Yveltal's wish could be fulfilled. Just like the time-travel with Celebi, Michael was delaying acceptance for as long as he possibly could. Spotting light through the trees, Michael shook the dark thoughts from his mind and grinned as he ran forward, wondering what he would find. He'd been walking through the forest for most of the day afterall, and even a forest as old and impressive as Celebi's home here in Kalos had to have an end somewhere.
When he finally broke the tree-line, he had to stop for several minutes, just to take in everything before him. Stretching out to his left and right was the tree-line of the forest, and almost beyond his sight, the trees met a rocky cliff, which continued circling the other half of the hidden valley. And between the cliffs and the trees was an ocean of multi-coloured flowers, intense yellows and reds and purples and blues. Tiny Flabebe darted from flower to flower, moving in harmony with the Combee buzzing around gathering the honey. As he watched, several small Pokemon poked their heads up from under the flowers, looking at him curiously and then disappearing underneath the carpet of colour. Smiling in awe of the hidden valley he'd stumbled upon, Michael began to wade through the flowers, moving slowly so as to allow the small Pokemon a chance to shift around his feet. The sky was a burnt orange, and Michael wondered if the local Pokemon would mind him camping out in their field with them for the night.
"Where the hell did you come from?" A woman's voice demanded from somewhere to Michael's left, startling the teen. Stumbling backwards and trying to contort his body so that he wouldn't land on the backpack, Michael was able see a glimpse of long brown hair and green bandana before gravity took hold and he fell backwards onto his left side with a rather undignified yelp. Laying contorted on the ground and blinking up at the sky, he was surprised a second time when the young woman's head appeared in his vision again, scowling at him from above.
"Sorry." He apologized, not even sure what he was apologizing for, even as he sat up and began tugging the backpack off his shoulders and into his lap. "A friend of mine told me about this forest, and he said almost no people ever come in here because the forest is a natural maze, and it's dangerous to get lost in there." Of course, Darius had said all this with a smile, before commenting that if someone did get lost, it would be very easy for said someone to simply call a friend with a Pokemon who could Teleport when they wanted to escape. And then he proceeded to wink at Michael and walk away whistling, before Ayashii Teleported him away as usual. As if Michael needed any more hint than that. The teen couldn't help but smile as he lifted the backpack's flap and was greeted by the sight of the red object filling the bag. He stared at it for a second before he closed the bag once more and pulled the straps back over his shoulders.
The girl frowned, crossing her arms over her chest as she stepped back, allowing Michael to rise to his feet as well. "So, knowing this forest was a maze, and knowing that it was dangerous to get lost, you wandered in anyway?" Her face screamed her opinion of his survival skills. Michael shrugged.
"My friend told me if it got to be a really bad situation then I could call him and he'd come pull me out. But honestly, I wandered into the forest with the intent of getting lost. I had to be away from people, and in a place where no-one could track me down either." He shuddered at the thought. Witnessing the aftermath of the destruction the first time had been bad enough. Being in the middle of it the second time… And then being questioned by the police over and over again, having to relive both events in the retelling again and again… And all the while, trying to hide the egg now nestled in his bag from pretty much everyone on the planet, for fear of what unscrupulous people might try to do with the innocent infant within…
Michael glanced up when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he realised the girl had closed the distance between them. Her hand was biting into his shoulder, but it was oddly grounding, in a way.
"You alright there?" She asked, not sounding worried- per se, but not the annoyed blustery tone from earlier either. Michael nodded.
"Everything that's been happening lately has just been getting to me recently." Michael admitted. "The police having to take my statement every other day wasn't helping either, so I just came out here to hide for a few days."
"The police?" The girl practically yelped, and Michael winced as several Pokemon were startled into hiding nearby. "What happened?"
The strange dark-skinned teen May had run into stared at her strangely, almost as if she'd grown a second head. Slowly, he twisted his head to the side.
"You seriously have no idea?" He asked, like it was a foreign concept. May scowled and released his shoulder in order to punch him in the arm.
"Like I pay attention to every little thing that happens in this place."
"It was hardly a little thing!" The teen yelped, his eyes wide. "How could you have missed the giant fireball launching into the sky and then falling back to earth? You know, the attempted destruction of the entire world?"
"Destruction of the world?" May frowned and glared at the boy. "They wouldn't have happened to have been wearing red uniforms and calling themselves Team Magma, would they?" She scowled when the boy flinched at the word 'red'.
"They wore red, but they called themselves Team Flare." He paused. "You really didn't notice." May rolled her eyes. She was about to comment on the boy's shock that someone didn't know about the big whatever, but before she could speak, something started beeping, and the boy quickly stepped back, holding up some strange device before going off several feet and holding it up to his face.
"Hey there." The teen greeted the device, which May belatedly realised must have been some kind of communicator, like the PokeNav back home. She watched as he cocked his head to the side.
"Oh joy." The boy said sarcastically. "Can he hear my side of the conversation?" Another pause, and the boy's stance relaxed slightly. "What about…?"
May shifted in annoyance. She wanted to know what this stranger was talking about, and who he was talking to, and what was up with the end of the world thing and fireballs anyway? She waited as the other person kept talking, and she tapped her foot on the ground impatiently. She looked up again when the teen snorted in amusement.
"I'm glad. And tell him I'm hiding, and no, I'm not coming out."
Well that didn't sound at all petulant. Then again, he'd been talking about police taking a statement earlier, so maybe he just needed space. Darius did, afterall, after he got out of the hospital. As she continued to wait, the teen turned around, looking at her as he smiled.
"Well tell him it's fine. I'm not alone; there's a girl here. …Nah, she punched me earlier." He paused. "That didn't come out the way I planned." He paused again while May shook a threatening fist at him as she smirked. The teen offered a smirk of his own, but whether it was aimed at her or at the device, May didn't know. "He'd probably nag less if you hid out here too." Another pause, and the teen's face went curiously blank.
"Thank you." He said before pressing a button and tucking the device back into his pocket. May watched as he paused long enough to take a deep breath and let it out before he turned back to her and began to wade through the flowers again.
Michael glanced down at the Holocaster, already figuring who would be calling.
"Hey there." He greeted his fellow agent as he lifted the device. He could practically hear Darius's smirk when the other spoke.
"Hey Michael, Looker's breathing down my neck to make sure I call you properly."
"Oh joy." Michael replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Can he hear my side of the conversation?"
"Nope. He wants to make sure I tell you that you'd better get your trainee butt back here." Darius replied, and Michael could easily visualize the other agent; lounging in his chair with the PokeNav pinched between his ear and his shoulder while he made air quotes to tease his boss. The dynamic between Looker, Johnny and Darius still seemed strange to Michael. Darius continued talking while Michael's mind wandered. "I guess he's called in Watcher and Tower for some reason. Seems to think having them interrogating you will make a difference."
Speaking of the other Watcher and Tower… "What about…" Michael started, and then found his voice deserting him. Luckily, Darius's odd mind-reading skills seemed to work through the phone as well.
"The other Archangel?" Darius confirmed. "It seems the morning after everything settled, he was talking with Watcher when a bright light enveloped him and he vanished. Our theory is that either Celebi or Dialga were righting the timeline, since there's no investigation for Celebi to grab you from, which would mean a paradox, which would leave two of you running around causing potentially universe-imploding problems. Headquarters is still going to look into it though."
Michael took a second to sigh in relief. It probably wasn't a healthy outlook, but he'd started considering the, him, from this timeline to be a completely different person from himself. He wasn't sure how well that logic would have held up to meeting, but he was glad the matter had been settled without his input. And he really didn't want to try figuring out how to explain the surrogate parent issue. "Thanks. And tell him I'm hiding, and no, I'm not coming out."
Darius laughed. "He's growling at me that you shouldn't be left alone." Michael heard the faint sound of Looker's voice on the other end of the line, before Darius spoke again. "No, that's exactly what you just said." More growling. "You said to tell him, so I told him word for word." Michael was struggling to keep from laughing at that point. "Use different words next time." Deciding to help Darius out, Michael spoke up again, turning slightly to look at the odd girl who'd somehow managed to miss the near-apocalypse.
"Well tell him it's fine. I'm not alone; there's a girl here."
"You just randomly met a girl?" Darius asked, the smirk evident in his voice.
"Nah, she punched me earlier." Michael replied easily, watching as the girl in question rolled her eyes and shook her fist in his direction. Darius was silent and Michael quickly replayed that last sentence through his head. "That didn't come out the way I planned." He said somewhat belatedly against the sound of Darius's laughter.
"Well then, I suppose since I've failed to convince you to return, I should get back to writing my own report and ignoring Looker's nagging."
"He'd probably nag less if you hid out here too." Michael commented, grinning. Darius sighed.
"Yeah, but if we both took off there'd be no-one left to hold off the police reports and the journalists and all the assorted rubber-neckers." Michael winced as he considered all the people that Darius's description entailed. Darius must have been left just as raw as he himself, maybe even worse off considering his aura-empathy thing, but the older agent was still fronting everything so Michael could have time to escape and cope.
"Thank you." He muttered softly before quickly hanging up before Darius could reply. He took a moment to catch his breath and settle his mind again before he turned back and walked back to where the girl was still standing.
May grinned as the strange boy walked back over to stand by her.
"Friend of yours?" She asked, grinning wider when he shrugged.
"Kinda, yeah. He's running interference with the police for me. I'd probably feel guilty about it if I wasn't so relieved." Hearing the tone of his voice, May nodded sagely. Thanks to some quick talking from Steven and several others, barely anyone knew that she and Darius had been at the heart of the showdown in Sootopolis. Despite that, they'd still had to deal with at least some of the pushier cops. At least, until Mary had chased them out of her house, and then Norman and Brendan teamed up to get them out of Littleroot.
Shaking her head to loosen the thoughts, May glanced up at the sky and tried to measure the time.
"There's no way you're getting back out of the forest before nightfall." She informed the boy. "And it's not safe to be running around in the dark, in case you hit a tree root or something." He glanced up, and May shrugged. "So long as you promise to behave yourself and tell me about the fireball I missed, then you can come spend the night around our campfire."
The boy considered this for only a moment, his green eyes quickly straying to the backpack he wore before he nodded. Grinning at him, May jabbed her hand in his direction. "The name's May. Mewtwo's hanging around here somewhere; don't give him trouble or I won't be responsible for your injuries." The boy blinked at that, but he nodded all the same, taking her offered hand and shaking it in greeting.
"Hi May. I'm Ar-" He paused and shook his head. "Michael. Michael Briggs."
May was admittedly somewhat impressed when Michael took Mewtwo's appearance in stride, and he was only speechless for a second when the psychic-type introduced himself. It took the girl a while to wheedle the basic story of the apocalypse out of him, and she could easily tell he was still hiding more stuff from her, but she decided not to press him. Yet.
The next morning, she was somewhat surprised to wake up to find herself alone in the campsite. It took only a small amount of wandering before she found Michael and Mewtwo by the banks of the river. Mewtwo was standing slightly behind the boy, while Michael was practically buried in Pokemon. He was laughing as he was trying to pet them all at once.
"I didn't even think of this." The boy was saying, twisting around to face Mewtwo. The psychic-type nodded.
"The Voice of the Forest told us what happened, and what you did to protect this place." Mewtwo said calmly, his psychic voice projecting around the field. "They are eager to thank the one who defended their lives." He was silent while Michael continued to ruffle the fur of the Pokemon crawling on top of him. May could imagine seeing Mewtwo frowning as the Pokemon crossed his arms over his thin chest. "If what was done to you bothers you, then I believe I know one who can reverse it."
At Mewtwo's words, Michael's head shot up.
"You can tell what happened?"
Mewtwo shook his head. "The Voice of the Forest has been travelling among those of us with power, seeking help for your various troubles. I can help you train when the time comes, but your personal concern is a far more challenging barrier. As for the one I spoke of, I do not know where he is, but I believe together he and I could figure out a way to alter what has been done." Mewtwo paused, glancing around and May winced. She hadn't actually intended to lurk quite as long as she had. Trying to act like she'd just arrived, and hoping Mewtwo didn't expose her, May made her way through the flowers, catching Michael's attention with a wave.
"Didn't expect you to be up so early." She greeted as the boy jumped in surprise and sent most of the Pokemon scurrying. Michael blinked several times before wrapping his arms around what looked like a large red egg and rising to his feet, nodding as he did so.
"I couldn't sleep, so I came out here to watch the sun rise." As May got closer, she watched as Michael shifted, and she paused, focusing on his movements with a slight frown. His wary gaze was darting between her and the egg in his arms, with an occasional glance at Mewtwo. Still several feet away from the boy, May tucked her hands into the pockets of the light jacket she was wearing and smiled.
"You're really protective of that egg." She observed with a grin, which she quickly dropped when she realised the boy had actually flinched when she'd looked at the object in his arms. She stopped, still several feet away from him as she considered that. What was his problem? It wasn't like she was going to try to steal it away from him.
Off to the side, Mewtwo looked at May before striding over and placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. Considering his reticence about physical contact of any sort outside of battling, May was somewhat surprised by the gesture, though the words he spoke may have been even more surprising.
"May is one of a very small group of humans that I trust. Whether you tell her anything or not, she will not harbour ill will towards the hatchling. Nor will she threaten it." The psychic's reassurances seemed to calm the teen, as he shifted into an easier stance, though May noted he didn't lessen his grip on the egg.
"I don't mean to be rude." Michael apologised, staring down at the egg, even though it was obvious he was talking to May.
"It's not rude to be protective." May grinned, but Michael just shrugged softly.
"The Pokemon that entrusted this egg to me; he was dying. It was his wish that I protect this egg, and his child inside. I couldn't protect him from that man, but I won't fail again. I'll raise this little one, and make sure no-one can ever think they can use up and destroy a Pokemon's life like that again."
May grimaced at his words, imagining for a moment what the boy must have seen. Kyogre and Groudon going at each other was a terrifying experience, but to see a Pokemon actually die because of human malice…
"It's like I tell Mewtwo." May said casually, trying to distract both herself and the boy in front of her from dangerous thoughts. "Some humans are scum who just need to disappear. Some aren't. That's all there is to it." Carefully, making sure to move slowly now that she understood at least a little, May joined Michael and Mewtwo. The boy nodded, offering her a small smile, but she noted that his grip on the egg did not loosen. But that was okay. She didn't mind at all.
Darius sighed as he sat at 'his' desk in Looker's office, bored out of his mind. Looker had forbade him from interacting with the reporters after he'd tried to use his aura to project a sense of stay-away at one of them. To all outsiders, the man had been walking down the sidewalk, following the young agent with a notepad and pen one minute. Then Darius turned and glared at the man; who proceeded to freeze, drop his notebook, and run screaming into traffic, leaving a wide-eyed Darius and growling Looker in his wake. It had taken several hours for someone to track the man down, seeing as he'd run straight across the city and out the other side, and was making good progress towards the ocean when he was finally calmed. He'd still panic if he got within four blocks of Darius, even if they had no clue the other was in the area.
Of course, Darius hadn't meant to be quite that forceful, but it seemed he was still a little clumsy when it came to fine control.
"That was more than a little clumsy hatchling." Rayquaza growled, causing Darius to snort in amusement. Seeing as he was alone in the office at the moment, Darius rolled his eyes and sighed out loud.
"I was annoyed, and I had a headache, and they'd already harassed Michael into hiding. This just proves to me that I need to train myself when this is over. Maybe I'll go back to Sinnoh." He thought about that. "Or maybe just Hoenn. Barely anyone knew I was mixed up in that mess a few years back, so I probably won't get as much hassle." Maybe Norman could help him train? The man seemed to exude a sense of calm control, no matter what was happening. Added to the fact that he already had a rough idea of what aftereffects Darius had been left with, and the fact that the man was at least mildly nice once Darius had returned to Hoenn the first time, he was an ideal choice. Or he could just go to Sky Tower and train on his own, without the fear of messing up anyone else.
Darius blinked as the office was filled with the sound of incessant ringing. Reaching out to where his PokeNav sat on his desk, he blinked and then smiled when he realised it was May calling. He hadn't talked to her since the whole Team Flare mess had started.
"Hi May!" He greeted, happy to have a new distraction from paperwork.
"Hey Darius!" She greeted, and he could hear the grin in her own voice. "I have a question."
"What, you didn't call just to say hi?" He teased, reclining in his chair. May snorted.
"You never call to just say hi either you know. Anyway; didn't you say that Looker was assigned to some big case in the Kalos region?"
Darius blinked at that, rocking his chair forward to sit up momentarily. "Yeah. He's just wrapping it up now though. What brought that up?"
"Nothing much really." May said in a tone that implied she was also shrugging on her end of the line. "Someone just recently told me a gang dressed in red were trying to do something along the lines of destroying the world. He called them Flare, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't a revival of Magma. I don't need to come kick some asses, do I?"
Grinning again, Darius leaned back once more. "Nah May, it's fine. Apart from the entirety of Geosenge now being a smoking crater, there's not much to clean up after, and Looker caught all the big names in the team in one fell swoop. It was all very efficient."
"Huh." May snorted. "And here I thought you were on medical leave."
"I am." Darius insisted with a smirk. "I was only being as nosy as the other civilians in the area." Technically Michael had been a civilian afterall. And then there'd been that Serena girl, who'd broken into the base even before Darius did. And then Looker's snarls over the mass of children he'd managed to gather while in the labs, two of which had apparently even been wearing masks.
"Yeah, okay." May said, her voice giving away the fact that she completely did not believe him. "Anyway, I just wanted to check that. Oh, and Mewtwo says he needs to talk to you at some point." Darius thought about that. Last he'd checked, May and Mewtwo were training in the Frosty Grotto in Unova. It had been several months ago, but she hadn't mentioned going anywhere else, so he assumed they were still there.
"Well, since Looker's probably going to put in for an extension to that medical leave since I supposedly wasn't resting and recovering, I was thinking of heading back to Hoenn for a while, catch up with some people and get some actual downtime. Why don't we all meet there in a few weeks?"
May was silent for a minute, either thinking about it herself or talking with Mewtwo. Either way, she spoke up a minute later. "That sounds like a plan. I'm going to drag this kid along with me; he and Mewtwo have been talking a lot and he looks like he could do with a roadtrip. See you then!"
Darius blinked at his mute Nav, blinking owlishly. What kid was she talking about? He thought about it for a minute before shrugging and dropping the yellow device back on his desk and reclining once more.
"Guess it doesn't really matter."
AN: Muwahaha! Yup, I'm dragging Michael along for the ride! The next story is going to be way more laid back, and formatted more as a series of consecutive oneshots, with an overarching plot. And even more characters to focus on! I'm trying to challenge myself here :) These days I can only write in sporadic bursts, so I can't even guess at when ADA (A Delta Adventure) will be out. Just, check my profile occasionally if you wanna read it. Or something. I'd give you a deadline so you'd know by when it would be out, but then I know I'd horribly fail... Just know so long as a story is not marked complete, I WILL FINISH IT! *pointedly does not look at the old Zombies Run story from years and years ago*
Questions? Comments? Scathing flames of unreasonable hatred? Even if this story has been up for a while, I'd greatly appreciate a review. Even a smiley face would make my day~